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"Sugar, Ah, Honey, Honey"

Carol Frilegh

I am 79 an undiagnosed Celiac, since March 2000. I had chronic sinus infections and fluctuating weight, lost 86 pounds, got pneumonia, and needed antibiotic and Prednisone. I also got MCS and Latex Allergy.
Unable to eat without pain, I started The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD).
Things began to improve at once. I am not cured but SCD has been effective in managing the Celiac
and helped improve my damaged immune system.
It is a bit stricter than the gluten-free casein-free diet, but

"Sugar, Ah,Honey, Honey" is the title of the hit song of 1969 by a garage band called, "The Archies." Their lyric includes this lovely analogy, "Like the summer sunshine pour your sweetness over me."

What a melodic way to describe my primary sweetener of choice and necessity. HONEY! Golden, clear pasteurized honey with few or no traces of bee pollen is a natural, anti oxidant and an ideal ingredient for cooking and baking as well for use as a syrup. Once accustomed to honey, you may find refined sugar and even raw cane organic syrups actually taste peculiar.

Elaine Gottschall, author of Breaking the Vicious Cycle and custodian of The Specific Carbohydrate Diet describes the sweet bee stuff in these words, "Honey is legal (on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet diet) because it contains only single sugars (monosaccharides) which do not need microvillienzymes in order for the two sugars of which it is composed to be absorbed into your bloodstream." These two sugars are already in the absorbable form.

However, sucrose and lactose, etc. need the action of the microvillienzymes and in people with IBS and other illnesses, research shows that these enzymes are not active (I explained in a previous blog about this problem also being present in Celiac Disease. The microvilli are flat, knocked onto the ropes and rendered inert by bacterial overgrowth).

Elaine goes on to say on her website that the enzymes inherent in honey continue breaking down the bit of sucrose and other oligosaccharides in the honey as it stands.

She emphasized we simply cannot believe that eating refined glucose and fructose from corn could possibly be better. Refined crystallized corn sugars are really a mixture of short chain (triscaccharides, tetrasaccharides, etc.) even though they are listed as dextrose and fructose.

Many large food processing companies, including the grain giants, are producing something called ISO-GLUCOSE and are obtaining it from crops which are high in a fructose-type-starch such as inulin, fructooligosaccharides (highly present in Jerusalem artichoke) and subjecting it to an enzyme which breaks it down to single fructose molecules.

Honey is not ingested at the rate that the iso-glucose is ingested because of its viscosity. This slows down the rate at which the sugars in honey reach the liver considerably.

I make a host of tasty recipes fudge, cookies, cakes, pies candies, toppings syrups, and sauces, thanks to honey. I keep honey in a cool dark place so it won't crystalize (when this occasionally happens I set the container in a pan of hot water and the viscosity is restored).

Since I switched from sugar to honey, I have gotten very few head colds.

It's neat, it's sweet. It's golden!

Editor's Note: Celiac.com supports
the idea that the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is gluten-free and can be
very helpful for many people, depending on their situation. We
disagree, however, with the assertion that Elaine Gottschall makes in
her book Breaking the Vicious Cycle that people with celiac disease can be cured by the Specific Carbohydrate Diet after being on it for a certain time period.

As always, Celiac.com welcomes your comments (see below).

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3 Responses:

I am so glad to find someone who needs and uses Honey as an alternative to other sweeteners. I have been trying to do the same thing. It is tough to convert recipes and still have them turn out good. Thanks for the information.

hey! I'm happy as well to find another person that is doing the SCD!!! I am only 24 years old and have been through so much with diet in the last 6 months testing and all but started the SCD 3 weeks ago and only after two days my pain went down everything in my body seems to be functioning like normal again... some of what I know it's going to take a long time. I LOVE honey and finding new recipes and learning is actually fun! Nice to find someone doing the same as me!

This is great. There are some fantastic gluten free seasonings. The Mexican is my favorite, great taste, not hot, has no sweetener, same for curry. It's at Holiday seasonings.com; all gluten free, ORGANIC, low salt(uses Himalayan salt), dairy free and vegan. There are five flavors that are fantastic, the barbeque is hot and great on turkey burgers, actually they are all great sprinkled on anything for extra flavor. They are 'organic popcorn seasonings' and make popcorn into a whole new experience. I find it great when I don't have time to cook, so I get creative.